


An Equinox in Space

by Guardy



Series: Equinox [1]
Category: Original Work, Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Setting, M/M, Slow Burn, gay romance in space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-02-08 13:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12865044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardy/pseuds/Guardy
Summary: Severin's a not-quite-human 'interspecies mediator' sent to sort out a quarreling mining colony in the middle of nowhere. He gets to pick a ship for his two-year mission. He chooses the biggest rust bucket with the cutest captain... completely by accident, really.Basically a gay romcom in space, using Star Trek as a framework. The two lovebirds are humongous dorks, and the rest of the crew isn't any better. Some angst, little interpersonal drama, mostly fluff and a lot of humor. Tags and rating will be updated as the story progresses, but it'll probably stay pretty tame.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was really quick with my NaNoWriMo this year (incidentally featuring the main story to this thing), and I wrote some 15k words for this in October anyway, so I thought hey, why not do something I can post for a change?
> 
> Disclaimers:
> 
> -The Star Trek content in here is a weird combination: Some VOY, some ENT, some DS9 and a load of Star Trek Online, of all the things. I took a few liberties with the canon, but I hope I made it work anyway. I did do a stupid amount of research, I just elected to ignore half of it.  
> -Story is unbetaed and was written with Scrivener's auto-correct turned on - worst case scenario, somebody gets a good laugh out of it. Please tell me if you find a mistake, though.  
> -Sev sounds like a space elf, but I swear, he's cute.  
> -More about the main story over on my tumblr at http://guardevoir.tumblr.com/projects  
> \- pictures of the main characters, should you want them: http://guardevoir.tumblr.com/post/135736330132 | http://guardevoir.tumblr.com/post/162086847377

Personal Log, Captain Absalom Hayes  
USS Equinox  
Star Date 65501.7

 

_“Our latest one-week patrol around the Sol system was made uncommonly exciting by two engine failures, one barely-avoided warp core breach after an unfortunate collision with a very small asteroid, a ship-wide failure of all sanitary facilities, and every single replicator only serving Gagh for an entire earth day for reasons as of yet unknown._

_Luckily, we were finally cleared for our long-overdue routine maintenance, and I look forward to seeing the worst of our many issues fixed._

_On a rather more unsettling note, Admiral Astra Bonaventure asked to speak to me personally - somewhat out of the ordinary, given that our flight plan and patrol route has been the same for an extended period of time, and that we have not received any truly new orders for the last two years. I have a suspicion that they either resolved to decommission Equinox regardless of Admiral Bonaventure’s promise to me… or they actually have a mission for us._

_I am unsure which is the more worrying possibility.”_

 

 

 

USS Equinox, Bridge  
Star Date 65501.8

 -Captain Absalom Hayes-

 

“Status?” 

“All parameters are within acceptable limits, sir. The docking procedure will be completed in three… two… one…” - clonk - “and we’re there, Captain. Didn’t even explode a little bit.”

The man in the ragged old seat in the middle of the bridge closed his eyes for just a second, then squared his shoulders.

“Excellent, Commander Lovell. You have the bridge - take care of the paperwork and the repair crews if you please; I’ll be at the Admiral’s to deliver my report and accept our new orders.”

The young man’s salute was incredibly cocky, especially for somebody who had just taken temporary command of a Federation starship, but Captain Absalom Hayes didn’t take the time to put the little brat in his place. Lieutenant Commander Lovell was a young, unexperienced officer whose only reason for the early promotion had been Admiral Lovell, one of the great heroes of the Dominion War and, incidentally, the brat’s father. In the beginning, Absalom had barely resolved to keep the brat on board instead of stuffing him into an escape pod and hurling it at Earth Spacedock, but for all that he was a nuisance, he showed an incredible amount of promise, and besides… well, Absalom himself wasn’t exactly Methuselah either. Though, to be fair it had taken him a war and the Borg to be promoted this early. But then again, did it really matter? He shook his head to get rid of that old, futile train of thought and hurried onward to the Admiral’s office.

 

He barely had the time to salute after he stepped into the Admiral’s office on Deck 47 - the old lady apparently wasn’t in the mood for idle talk.

“Hello, Captain Hayes,” she said, barely looking up from her datapad, “I have a long-term mission for you.”

Absalom raised an eyebrow, more than just a little surprised. The _Equinox_ was old, almost a century, and had been relegated to patrolling the empty, dark fringes of the Sol system for almost half that time - excluding a little, albeit memorable, stint during the Dominion War. The Admiral, of course, noticed his surprise instantly… or maybe she’d just guessed his reaction, given that she was still tapping away at her datapad. Not that it was a terribly surprising reaction.

“Wasn’t my idea,” she said with a small shake of her head, “but your passenger’s.”

“ _Passenger_?” Absalom asked, hoping that he’d kept his voice more neutral than he felt. Great, this was just getting better and better by the second…

The Admiral wordlessly activated a communicator.

“Mr. Lapointe, please come to my office - Captain Hayes has arrived.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” the mystery person answered. His voice, at least, sounded pleasant enough, though it had a peculiar lilt to it, an accent the universal translator didn’t quite know how to handle.

 

Really barely more than a minute later, one of the most unusual people he’d ever seen stepped into the Admiral’s office - he looked almost human, but his hair was very long and snow-white, his face seemed oddly asymmetrical - it took him a second look to realize that his eyes didn’t have the same color - there was something subtly strange about the shape of his ears, and while he couldn’t quite get a good look, his fingernails seemed to sharp and too opaque for a human.

“My name is Severin Lapointe,” the man said with a smile that revealed teeth too straight and even to be entirely natural, and held out a hand for Absalom to shake, “pleased to meet you.”

“Captain Absalom Hayes,” he replied and they shook hands. “Likewise.” He paused for a second, then cleared his throat when nobody else continued talking.

“May I ask what this is about?”

“You may,” the Admiral said dryly.

Absalom suppressed a sigh.

“What is this about, sir?”

The Admiral simply pointed to Mr. Lapointe and grabbed another datapad from her desk, comparing it to the one he was already holding.

Absalom turned to the other man and raised an eyebrow.

He cleared his throat, and began to explain.

“Due to some special circumstances,” he said, “I hold a rather unique position in the Federation - I work as an interspecies mediator, mostly solving conflicts on colonies settled by more than one sapient species. There is a very new mining colony, actually quite a bit outside of Federation space, a joint Federation venture involving a good half-dozen species and their respective governments. It’s apparently all about a new metal compound, which is somewhat of a big deal, but I know absolutely nothing about that kind of thing, so you’d have to ask somebody else for the details on the technical side of things. Now, tension and unrest has been brewing ever since the thing started, and now it’s my job to go there and defuse the situation before it turns into something more serious than mild discontent.”

Absalom nodded, and started pacing up and down the office, deep in thought.

“So you need someone to get you there and back?” He stopped, shook his head. “The Equinox is a century-old rustbucket, which has been completely outclassed for decades. She’s _my_ rustbucket and I love her dearly, of course, but are you quite sure you want me for an apparently quite time-sensitive mission?”

“Yes,” Mr. Lapointe replied instantly, “because I need more than just a glorified chauffeur - I also need someone who can serve as my assistant while we’re on the planet and sorting things out, which may take several months. I need someone who is diplomatically skilled, but also down-to-earth and non-threatening.” He smiled - it was a nice smile, open and honest. “I’ve read most of your reports, and I am perfectly sure that I want you for this mission. I’ll tolerate the ship - I believe it’ll be worth it.”

Absalom seriously doubted that, but Mr. Lapointe looked like he’d made up his mind anyway. Heavens, he was going to regret this. They were _both_ going to regret this.

“How long will we be gone?” he asked.

“Two to three years, potentially,” Mr. Lapointe said, and the Admiral nodded.

Absalom closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath.

“I’ll have to ask my crew - they did not sign up for anything like this, and I would like to give them the opportunity to request another assignment. Many of them have families, forcing them apart would be needlessly cruel.”

“If that means you’ll be gone for several years,” the Admiral remarked dryly, “I’ll permit it.”

The Captain ignored the jibe with practiced ease - they both knew he’d known her for too long to take it seriously.

Instead, Absalom asked, “When are you planning to leave?”

“Whenever your ship is ready,” Mr. Lapointe said.

“Not to be a pessimist, Mr. Lapointe, but I’m not sure you’ll still have a colony to mediate by the time it is…”

He tapped his combadge.

“Captain Hayes to Commander Lovell,” he said, “how long are the repairs scheduled to take?”

“Around two months, sir,” came the surprisingly prompt answer.

“Thank you. Hayes out.”

Then he looked at Mr. Lapointe again.

“You see?” he asked.

The Admiral put aside her datapads and looked up.

“Hail your Commander again, and ask him how long it’ll take now.”

He did, and Lovell cut him off before he’d said a single word.

“No idea how you did it, but it’s two weeks, now, Captain,” he said, sounding duly impressed.

“I’ll tell you soon enough,” Absalom sighed, “Hayes out.”

“We’ll give them three weeks,” the Admiral said, “so that you’ll have enough time to sort out your crew, Captain Hayes.”

“Are you certain the Equinox will hold together for three years away from Earth?” Absalom asked.

The Admiral shrugged.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but that ship is a tough old bugger if I’ve ever seen one. It’s still probably not a very good idea,” she admitted, “but I don’t think it’s necessarily a suicidal one.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Mr. Lapointe said, sounding rather chipper, then he grew serious.

“Captain Hayes,” he said, “if you really don’t want to do this, I won’t force you. I genuinely believe you are the best fit for the job, and I’ve been on more than one old Miranda-class vessel - though never one quite that old and with so many partial retrofits, admittedly - and I think it will all work out in the end… but if you’re not totally convinced and eager to go, there’s no point to it.”

Absalom sighed. It seemed like an entire mountain of unnecessary risks and complications just waiting to happen, but oh, he missed being away from earth, he missed the wide expanses of empty interstellar space, he missed the sweet siren call of adventure…

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he finally said, “but I’d be lying if I claimed that I was neither flattered nor very intrigued. I definitely do want this mission, I’m merely not sure I should take it.” Absalom sighed again... and made a decision. “I’ll do it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the risks, but I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Lapointe said and grinned broadly, his eyes - brown and blue - sparkling with excitement.

 

Half an hour later, he was back aboard Equinox.

 

An hour after that, he’d summoned the entire crew to the mess hall and briefed them on their new mission. Three left; one who didn’t deal well with the vast emptiness of interstellar space, one - the cook, unfortunately - who’d just gotten engaged, and one who had a five-month old daughter… but apart from that, everyone seemed very pleased with this unexpected development. Of course - many of them were young and untested and some of them hadn’t left the solar system since their time on the Academy’s training ships. In any case, Absalom was pleased.

 

And two hours after _that,_ he and his entire crew had been told to get off the ship for the next two weeks to give the technicians and maintenance crews full reign, and Absalom was stuck in a cruddy cabin on Earth Space Dock for fourteen miserably dull days, unable to even fly to earth and have a nice little holiday in San Francisco, because he was technically still on call. He really should have expected that.

 

The last week until the start of their voyage, on the other hand, was wildly stressful - he had to prepare the ship and the crew, had to get a whole bunch of paperwork done, had to take inventory… He barely even noticed when Mr. Lapointe came on board four days before they were scheduled to leave, and he hardly saw him after that, as the man mostly stayed out of the way as best he could… which showed a surprising amount of common sense for a passenger, really.

 

And then, finally, it was time for them to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stardates should correspond to July 2388, fyi. Not that it has much of a bearing on anything...  
> Also, by all accounts replicators aren't supposed to replicate living beings, and Gagh is best eaten live... so it's not only Klingon food, it's *bad* Klingon food.  
> "Astra" is a bad pun, and Bonaventure is a play on Bonaventura, my first Star Trek Online toon, because I'm a nerd.  
> Writing Absalom and Severin as not-friends is difficult, because of how long I've been writing them - if you're not sure if you like this story, please give it another chapter or two. It'll get better, I swear.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... in which everybody is a tremendous dork.
> 
> I'm pretty sure the last time I added a chapter to *anything* was in 2010. Yey?

  
Severin spent the days preceding the launch mostly in his cabin - not only did he want to avoid getting in the way and angering the captain before they had even started, there also wasn’t much else to do on board such an old, small ship. He had brought along virtually no personal possessions, safe for some clothes and a bunch of data pads and assorted digital storage media, so he didn’t take long to put his stuff away and get settled in the small, cramped, gray cabin he had been allotted. At least it had one tiny, slightly scratched window, for all the good that did.  
There very likely was no holodeck, nor much else in the way of entertainment, and while the ship likely had a small gym, Severin wasn’t quite _that_ bored. No, instead he grabbed a datapad and read a book or two - and mission briefings and other such highly important stuff, of course.

Half an hour before launch, the captain hailed him, to ask if he was, indeed, aboard the ship and ready to leave Earth Spacedock, but he didn’t quite dare to leave his cabin until they had been underway for well over an hour. In his experience, most captain didn’t enjoy having their passengers wandering around and getting in the way at every opportunity, and Captain Hayes seemed interesting enough that Severin wanted the other man to like him.

Finally, when he couldn’t contain his curiosity nor stand the boredom, he stepped out into the narrow, dim corridor and made his way up to the bridge.

As the door slid open, every single person on the bridge turned around to look at him, most of them very obviously curious. The captain didn’t quite smile at him, but the look he gave Severin was quite friendly, anyway. There was something odd about it all; the Captain was neither tall nor short, but slender and elegantly built, and he had a remarkably pretty face, all high cheekbones and green, green eyes, and shoulder-length, silky, dark brown hair, but he also had an air of confidence about him - Severin could have identified him as the captain among his entire crew, just based on the way he carried himself, and that was- well, first of all, that definitely wasn’t the direction he wanted his thoughts to go in.

“Mr. Lapointe,” the Captain said, thankfully interrupting Severin’s wrong-bad-evil train of thought, “we all assumed you would join us at launch.”  
Severin stepped further into the room, and just barely didn’t casually shrug.  
“I didn’t want to get in the way,” he said. “After all, I’m merely a passenger.”  
“Your intentions are honorable,” the captain said, “and I’m grateful for your consideration… but we almost feared you’d gotten lost somewhere. Staying out of the way during red alerts or similarly sensitive situations would still be advisable, but otherwise you are quite welcome on the bridge. After all, this is your mission.”  
Severin nodded.  
“Thank you, sir,” he said, and, upon noticing the slightest twitch of the other man’s eyebrows, tried again: “Or, uh… thank you, um, Captain?”  
This time, the other man did smile, if only slightly.  
“I’d prefer that, yes,” he said. Then he grew serious again. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stop by some Starfleet outpost or another over the next week or two, and have the Equinox checked to see if all the repairs hold. Also, I had another talk with Admiral Bonaventure, and we decided that flying through Klingon space isn’t worth it; it might shave a few weeks off of our travel time, but Equinox’s weapons aren’t exactly… modern, really, and we would be a prime target for a spot of spontaneous piracy.”  
Severin nodded. “Agreed,” he said.

The captain pulled a star chart up to the main view screen and watched it spin around for a few seconds, eying it critically.

“Now, we’ll be fairly firmly in Federation space for most of our journey, and I expect relatively little in the way of sudden, unexpected dangers - external ones, at least - but there is a fairly large and dangerous swath of space between the Mutara Nebula and Rigel, which is going to be somewhat… hairy, potentially. Not to mention the several dozen active anomalies that are, statistically speaking, running rampant in Federation space right now. Luckily, they seem to have a tendency to pop up near well-regarded ships equipped with only the most famous of captains and absolutely cutting-edge tech - let us hope this pattern continues, because if it does, we will be perfectly safe.”  
Somebody snickered, two consoles away.  
“Now,” the captain continued, “as far as I’m aware, you spoke to hardly anyone since you came on board - somebody will have to give you a tour of Equinox eventually, but I’d like to tell you about some of her peculiarities right now, if you don’t mind.”  
Severin was surprised - he hadn’t expected the captain to be so helpful, especially not after his initial reluctance to accept this mission.  
“Sure, I’d love to hear it,” he said.  
“Good, good. Well, first of all,” the captain said, “movie night is every Friday evening and Saturday morning in the mess hall, to accommodate everybody’s work schedules. The movie is the same on both occasions, but you’re welcome to watch the thing twice, of course. We also have a small gym, and that is pretty much it when it comes to entertainment. Now for the less positive things: The waste extraction system is a bit fussy, be careful not to overload it or you may come to regret it. A lot.”  
Severin winced; he didn’t really want nor needed to ask for further details; he could just about imagine how that would go.  
“Furthermore, we have a list of approved replicator dishes and assorted items, which are relatively unlikely to break anything. Our replicators were completely overhauled at Earth Spacedock, but you’d do well to be careful anyway. Last time somebody got a bit too adventurous, everybody had to eat Gagh for a day. I personally didn’t mind too much, but most of my crew were not amused.” He paused, tilted his head. “How are your quarters?”  
“Gray,” Severin answered before he could stop himself. “Uh, I mean…”  
The captain laughed, just as surprised by Severin’s honesty as he was.  
“Yes, well, that’s certainly true,” he said. ”I’ll have a look around, maybe I can find a carpet or a painting for you.”  
“Oh? Oh! No need to concern yourself with something so trivial, captain,” Severin protested, but the captain cut him off with a short, sharp look.  
“Nonsense. Spending years in a dull, gray compartment without making it a bit more habitable would drive anyone to madness. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to pick up something decorative at a starbase - or at least use their replicators and replicate yourself a tapestry or something.”  
“You could lend him a potted plant,” the conn officer, a disturbingly young woman, piped up, “heaven knows you’ve got enough of them.”  
“Manners, Leonhardt, we’re on duty,” the captain admonished gently.  
”Although she is right,” he added, “I can probably spare an African Violet or two.”  
“Bad idea,” Severin said, “I’ve got the exact opposite of a green thumb, I’m afraid. I appreciate the offer, though.” He paused. Were they really talking about _potted plants_ now? How had that happened?  
The Captain seemed to pick up on his confusion and cleared his throat.

"Have I introduced you to my command crew yet?” he asked.  
“No, si… uh, no, Captain, you haven’t”, Severin said, now back on slightly more familiar conversational terrain.  
“Well, in that case…” the Captain pointed at the young conn officer, “Sissy Leonhardt, our Flight Controller. Then there’s Cecilia Castell,” he pointed at another lady, slightly less terribly young, with dark skin and a magnificent afro of bright red hair, “our ops and comm officer. Vincenzo Noctauris,” he pointed at another person behind another station, this time a stately, tall man with shiny, curly black hair and a friendly, soft face, “Science officer and Chief of Security. Then, there’s my second-in-command and tactics officer, Valère Lovell.” He pointed at a very young, cheeky-looking fellow with curly dark brown hair. “Not on the bridge are our Chief Medical Officer Angelica Maur, Victor van Rossum the ships counselor among other things, and Chief Engineer Mortimer Osiris Harrier.”  
Severin raised an eyebrow.  
“Your science officer doubles as chief of security and your first officer is also your tactics officer? That’s unusual.”  
The captain sighed.  
“I’m afraid there are very few… usual things about this ship or crew. Besides, the ship’s not big enough to have a first officer as a separate assignment… and that’s good, because Mr. Lovell excels at blowing things up.”  
Severin wondered if he imagined the implied ‘… and _only_ blowing things up’. Probably. Hopefully.  
“Anyway,” the captain continued, apparently oblivious, “if you want to do Doc Maur a favor, you should go down to the med bay and talk to her. She’ll have received your medical data from Command, but she generally doesn’t trust any data she didn’t double-check herself.”  
Severin sighed - he’d had gotten enough attention from doctors for several lifetimes.  
“Is there a problem?” the captain said, sounding genuinely surprised.  
“You probably noticed that I’m not entirely human, right?” Severin said, quietly, trying not to catch the attention of the entire bridge and doing exactly the opposite, “I’m a walking, talking genetic anomaly, and if she has even the tiniest streak of curiosity, she’s going to love this.”  
“Doc Maur has the personality of a particularly dour Vulcan when she’s on duty,” conn officer Leonhardt piped up, “so even if you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to her, like, ever - and that, I seriously doubt - you’re never going to know. Plus, she’s cool, I promise. In fact,” she continued, “the shift change is in… what, about five minutes? If you want me to, I can show you the way as soon as I’m out of here. And if the Captain doesn’t mind, I can show you around the ship, too.”  
Severin noticed the slightest change in the captain’s position, that tiny eyebrow twitch again. Apparently, the captain did mind, but didn’t want to say anything.  
Sissy Leonhardt had, apparently, noticed it too.  
“Okay, okay, I guess the Captain might want to show you around personally and he totally should,” she said, trying hard not to smile.  
“Thank you, I will,” Captain Hayes said, and somehow managed to make it seem dignified. “I do think accompanying Mr. Lapointe to the med bay is a good idea, though.”

So, some five minutes later, Severin stepped into the turbo lift together with Sissy Leonhardt, in all her short, cocky, curly, freckled glory. He had no idea how she managed to look like she’d just fallen out of some sun-bathed apple tree in rural Virginia despite living on a starship many, many billion miles away from fresh air and natural sunlight, but she sure did.  
“Your captain seems to have a very… relaxed style of command,” he stated. It probably didn’t quite qualify as small talk, but he was curious about how things were done on this temporary home of his.  
“He sure does,” the woman replied brightly, and for a moment, it seemed like that would be all she’d say… but then she grinned at him and winked.  
“If you want to know anything about this fine ship,” she said, “you’ll have to ask a bit more directly - I’m not particularly good at subtlety.”  
“Fair enough,” Severin said and grinned back at her, before he fell silent for a minute, trying to put all his questions into a few concise sentences.  
“Were your interactions with the captain on the bridge indicative of the way he runs this ship in general?” He finally asked and almost rolled his eyes at his stilted choice of words. So much for small talk…  
Lt. Leonhardt snickered.  
“For the most part, yes,” she said, “but don’t let my and Lt. Lovell’s silliness fool you, we all respect Captain Hayes more than you can possibly imagine. Protocol just tends to come a little easier to some of us than others, and as long as we’re competent and hard-working, the captain just lets us do our thing. Besides, he likes to take naps on some old, disused catwalks in main engineering, and that’s not exactly adhering to any sort of protocol either.”  
“He what?” Severin asked, appropriately baffled.  
The turbo lift doors opened and they stepped out into a corridor.  
Leonhardt grinned.  
“It gets pretty toasty up on those catwalks, and I think he likes the engine noise. Anyway, here on Equinox, we respect each other and our weird fucking quirks, we care about as much about Starfleet protocol as Starfleet cares about us, and we do things how they work for us, and sometimes that includes being a wise-ass to the captain… and, in return, pretending we don’t see him sleep on some obsolete old catwalk.”  
A turn into another corridor.  
“Any other things I’d need to know?” Severin asked.  
Leonhardt shrugged.  
“Don’t talk about Starfleet Command too fondly, be nice to our captain, and respect the way we run things here. When in Rome… well, you get the idea.”  
They stopped in front of a door on the end of the corridor.  
“And this,” Leonhardt said solemnly, reaching up and putting a hand on his shoulder, “is where I leave you. Now, Doc Maur loves herself some protocol and a certain no-nonsense attitude. It’s probably going to weird her out in the long run, but if you want to kiss- uh, _ingratiate yourself to her_ , which is probably a good idea… well, you know what to do.”  
Severin nodded.  
“Thanks, Leonhardt,” he said, which got him another wide grin.  
“Ha! See, you get it. Bye, Mr. Lapointe!”  
She waved, and then she was gone.

Severin turned around and opened the door to sickbay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild update appeared! As did space nuisances, and they brought plot! And pain occurs. That's going to be somewhat of a running theme - there's a reason why Doc Maur is such a grump. She's usually a real sweetheart though. 
> 
> I expected this story to be way more episodic, but nope, three chapters and still no big story jumps.

The door to sickbay opened, and Severin stood right before a tall, slim, dark-skinned lady with natural hair long enough to be impressively poofy, bound back with a colorful hair tie.

She gave him a short, sharp look.

“Severin Lapointe?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Doctor Maur?” He didn’t quite stand at attention, but close enough to get the point across.

She nodded, then tilted her head and raise a carefully groomed eyebrow.

“You talked to Lt. Leonhardt,” she stated. It was not a question.

“I did.”

“I appreciate the effort, but too much adherence to protocol just seems forced. I’m happy as long as you are polite and know when to keep your mouth shut, _unlike_ Lt. Leonhardt. Now, what brings you here?”

“The captain suggested you might want to do quick check-up, to confirm my medical records.”

She nodded.

“Yes, I would like to do that. I understand that you yourself don’t know anything about your… huh, genetic composition? The species of your ancestors?”

“Not a single thing,” Severin said, resigning himself to the prodding and poking that would invariably follow.

Doc Maur hummed.

“Well, I’ll check your pulse and blood pressure and temperature and all that, to see if everything matches up to your records. I would also like to take a tissue sample and see if I can sequence your genome, as well as run a blood test.”

“Why?” Severin asked brusquely; it sounded a lot more harsh than he had intended it to be.

“So that I can treat you quickly should you fall ill or get injured. Starfleet Command didn’t think it would be necessary to include any potential treatments in your fancy file, so if you as much as get a headache, you’ll be in trouble.”

“Huh…”

“Look, I actually don’t really want to know what you are, I just want to know how I’d go about treating you should the need arise. I think I can understand why you’re a bit apprehensive, but I promise you that I’ll leave you be after we’re done here.”

Severin sighed - he saw no other way than to trust her, for now.

 

She pronounced him ‘probably healthy as far as I can tell’ almost an hour later, and shooed him out of the sickbay to work on all the tests she planned to run, so he walked back toward the turbolift, trying to decide whether to go back to the bridge or his quarters.

He was leaning heavily toward ‘bridge, maybe’, when the turbolift doors opened and the captain stepped out into the corridor, spotted him, and hurried over to him.

 

“Ah, Mr. Lapointe,” he said, “I was looking for you. Is Doc Maur done with you?”

“More or less, yes,” Severin replied, mildly annoyed and slightly exhausted and definitely not willing to say another word about anything related to doctors.

The captain gave him an oddly worried look, so Severin said something before the captain could: “And you, Captain Hayes - is your shift over, too?”

The Captain shook his head, then gave a weird half-shrug.

“I’m the captain,” he said, “I’m always on duty. And no, I’ll probably go back to the bridge later; I like to split my time on there pretty evenly between all three shifts whenever possible. However,” he smiled, “I also like to do a little tour of the ship as often as possible, just to see what goes on among the crew. I wanted to ask if you’d like to join me.”

“Oh, I’d love to,” Severin said, and to his surprise he realized that it was the truth - he was definitely interested in the captain’s perspective on his ship - and he really wanted to see the way he interacted with his enlisted crewmen, too.

“Great, let’s get started,” the captain said, briskly turned around and went back into the turbolift, motioning Severin to follow him.

“Normally, I’d go through the ship in a more logical manner,” he said as the doors closed, “but I’d like to start in main engineering today; the ship’s been sounding a little bit different than usual, and I want to see why.”

Not that it kept him from pointing things out on the way there - mostly just little comments as they rushed by: “Head”, “storage”, “most strategically useful Jefferies tube access”, “Petty Officer Maude Williams’ quarters are somewhere back there; she sometimes puts on small concerts in the corridor, together with some of the crew. Keep an ear open for that, she’s a fantastic violinist.”

 

Finally, they stepped into main engineering.

The first person who spotted them was a short, slim man, who seemed overwhelmingly sandy-beige, from his light brown eyes to his silky-looking, curly hair to the tip of his impressively large, beaky nose.

He acknowledged his visitors with a small nod, and looked back at his console.

“Chief Engineer Harrier,” the Captain told Severin quietly, before stepping up to the man.

“Mr. Harrier,” he said, “did the repair crew tinker with your carefully calibrated engine again?”

The engineer gave a quiet ‘hah’, and angrily tapped the console screen before turning back around to the captain.

“Oh damn right they did,” he said, “warp core efficiency is down by fifteen percent, cooldown time is up by ten, and Equinox is accelerating far too sluggishly.”

“The engine noises sounded… off,” the captain said, “slightly harsher than usual. Do you need a few more hands to help with that?”

“Nah, we’ll get it fixed up. It’s one of those things, you know… easy, but time-intensive as all hell. I’m so glad I keep a nice, clean record of all changes I’ve made to the engine…”

“I told the Spacedock crew to consult with you before touching the engine,” the captain said. “I guess they didn’t do that?”

“Nope,” Mr. Harrier said, “of course not.” He stopped, snapped his fingers. “I just remembered - I’ll need to borrow your first officer for a bit, to re-calibrate the weapons. Is he working on anything important right now?”

“He’s off duty,” the captain replied, “and likely sitting in the mess hall with a cup of coffee. Just try hailing him.”

“Will do, captain. And you? Are you showing our guest around?”

The captain hummed affirmatively.

“I was making my rounds anyway,” he said, “and thought I might as well. Is everything going well here apart from your Earth Spacedock-induced woes?”

“Oh, quite. They did do a decent job on the maintenance as such, and they left us some spare parts we might need, which was admittedly very nice of them. Might see if I can use some of those power couplings to make our secondary systems run a bit more smoothly after I’m done here.”

“Then I’ll get out of the way and leave you to it,” the captain said, and turned to leave, before stopping dead in his tracks and turning back around, to face the engine room. He walked over to one of the ladders leading up to the catwalks spanning all of main engineering, and climbed up the lowest rungs, until he could look over the edge of said catwalk.

“Mr. Ada,” he called out, which was answered with the sound of Starfleet boots on catwalk grating.

Severin couldn’t see the other man, nor overhear their exchange, but the captain seemed pleased enough when he climbed back down the ladder.

“Ada Chelen,” he explained, “a young Bajoran who’s relatively new here.” He smiled. “Still tends to get a bit queasy at the start of a voyage. Excellent engineer, though, and a positively delightful person. So. And now let’s get out of here so my crew can get to work fixing the maintenance crew’s mistakes. I wish they’d listen to my crew just once, it would save all of us so much time…”

“It’s that much of a problem?” Severin asked, as the doors to main engineering closed behind them.

“Well, yes,” the captain said. “Equinox is one of the older Miranda-class ships in Starfleet, and in many ways substantially different from most other ships of that class. Lots and lots of partial retrofits there - she’s a mess to work on even when you know the ship inside-out, and when you don’t… well, just applying the same methods you’d use for every other ship doesn’t quite work here, but try telling that to Starfleet’s maintenance crews…”

 

A minute later or so, they were walking along the corridor, side by side… and then they weren’t. Without any sort of warning, they were flung forward by a tremendous change in speed that the inertial dampeners couldn’t quite handle.

Severin yelped as he sailed through the air, gracelessly flailing, and came to a skidding halt maybe ten meters down the corridor, confused and in pain, his hands and right cheek burned by the friction between his skin and the rough carpeted floor. He sat up - and _damn_ , his side hurt, he’d probably pulled a muscle - and turned around just in time to see the captain sit up and tap his combadge.

“Bridge?” he asked.

“Some kind of tractor-beam-based proximity mine,” came the prompt answer. “We’re not moving, but we don’t know- oh, wait, there’s a ship decloaking near us. Not Romulan. Doesn’t look friendly either, though.”

“Right. Red alert, distress call, I’ll be there in a minute. Do we have a damage report?”

“Yes, one second…”

The ship switched to red alert and Severin could hear the beep of a console over the comm.

The captain tried tried to get up while waiting for the answer, just to hiss in pain and sink back down.

“Minor injuries across all decks, and our weapons were disabled. Very minor damage to the ship - no further details on that, I guess something flew into a computer panel somewhere.”

“Good. Stall until I’m there, but don’t do anything stupid. Did you send out that distress call?”

He again tried to get up, and this time he did manage to get on his feet - where he then awkwardly balanced on his left foot, leaning against the wall.

Severin stepped up to him, waiting to ask if the captain required his help.

“Yes,” came the answer to the captain’s question, “and there seems to be at least one Federation starship not too far away.”

“Excellent. Right, give me a second. Hayes out.”

“Captain Hayes,” Severin said as soon as the comm link was closed, “are you okay? Can I help you?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” the captain said, and awkwardly hobbled a few steps along the corridor, “and you’ll go to your quarters now and stay safe.”

Another few half-jumps, before the captain lost his balance, accidentally put weight on his right foot, and cried out in pain, sharply cut off when Severin shot forward and grabbed his elbow when he was about to fall.

“If I leave you alone, your precious ship will be a hulk of space trash before you ever get to the bridge,” Severin hissed, and instantly felt bad about it.

The captain only sighed, an angry, deeply frustrated sigh.

“Fine. You seem competent enough - I trust you won’t do anything tremendously stupid, diplomat or not.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been in worse situations, I know how to handle myself,” Severin said, perfectly honestly. “Now, put an arm around my shoulders and we’ll get you to the bridge.”

The captain did, and together they hobbled off, not quite as fast or as smoothly as Severin would have liked, but they managed.

“How are you holding up?” Severin asked while they waited for the turbo lift.

The captain made an indistinct little noise, something between a groan, a sigh, and the auditory equivalent of a shrug.

“I’m in pain, annoyed, and quite confused about somebody holding up Federation starships so close to HQ.”

“Captain, their weapons are online and they’re hailing us,” the bridge crew piped up over the comm.

“Answer them, tell them if they want to talk to the captain, they’ll have to wait for another minute.”

“If they don’t shoot us instead…”

“They won’t, they probably want something from us.”

“Yes, captain,” they said and closed the com link, presumably to answer the other ship’s hail.

 

The turbo lift doors opened, Severin and the Captain stepped inside, the doors closing behind them.

As they started making their way up to the bridge, the Captain took his arm off of Severin’s shoulder and awkwardly balanced on one foot, grimacing in pain when he tried to put some weight on his injured ankle.

“What are you doing?” Severin asked, alarmed.

“I’ll have to walk out onto the bridge alone,” he said. Before Severin had time to protest, he added: “No, listen, I don’t want the crew or our mysterious attackers to know that I’m injured. Don’t bother arguing with me, I’ll have to deal with the consequences, not you.”

Severin sighed.

“You could probably hold on to my arm or something without it being immediately obvious. Not a perfect solution, but I think you’d get away with it, instead of potentially landing flat on your face after two steps - especially in the dim Red-Alert-lighting.”

“Hm,” the captain said, before nodding, and carefully, hesitatingly, putting a hand on the arm Severin held out to him.

“Are you ready?” he asked. The captain gave a short, anxious laugh and didn’t answer.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, as the turbo lift doors opened and they stepped out onto the bridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally do that kind of thing, but... getting people to read (partially) original fiction on AO3 isn't easy, and I haven't really posted my stuff online in a long, long time, so I'm a bit nervous about this, too. If (and *only* if) you enjoy this story, please remember to press the kudos button and leave some kudos - it'll show other people that this thing might be worth reading, and it'll also make my day. Cheers!  
> Also, RE: Update Schedule: I have one, but self-imposed public deadlines is where my stories go to die, so I'm keeping it to myself for the sake of plausible deniability. I'm aiming for rrrrrrroughly one chapter per week, probably toward the weekend, with additional updates if I have time for them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time~ Update time~ Updates all the way~ What fun it is to u-hup-date~ in the middle of the night~ Hey~  
> I wanted to be done with this way earlier, but I accidentally played Civilization V for... uh, *a lot* of hours instead.

The first thing Severin noticed as they stepped out onto the bridge was the way the captain stumbled and almost fell, hanging onto his arm for dear life and gripping hard enough to hurt. The second thing, however, was that the bridge crew was looking rather bedraggled - Lt Leonhardt at the conn had a pretty bad nosebleed and was stemming the blood flow with her uniform sleeve to avoid dripping blood onto the console. First officer Lovell had apparently been dragged out of bed, as he was wearing positively ridiculous Pajamas obviously based on Captain Kirk’s uniform. He was also sporting a nasty gash across his eyebrow, and was in the process of developing one hell of a shiner. The rest of the bridge crew consisted of B-shift regulars Severin hadn’t met yet, and they all seemed to be in varying amounts of pain - though probably not nearly as much as their captain, who was still struggling to reach his chair. Severin could hear his breath hitch every time he so much as pretended to put weight on his injured foot, and he was beginning to feel really sorry for the poor, stubborn sod.

 

They finally reached the captain’s chair - Captain Hayes stumbled down the small step leading down to it, made a desperate grab for the backrest and somehow managed to sit down in an at least somewhat natural-seeming manner. Still slightly out of breath, he looked at the pitch-black main viewscreen.

 

“What happened to that hail you were supposed to answer?” he asked nobody in particular.

“Who’s there?” asked a voice over the speakers; almost soundless, rasping, hissing, accompanied by some truly worrying background noises, like nails on a chalkboard, if the chalkboard also happened to be a screaming pterodactyl.

To his credit, Severin would have never noticed the captain flinch if he hadn’t been standing right next to the man.

He gave his first officer a confused look, and then answered:

“This is Captain Absalom Hayes of the Federation Starship Equinox. Who am I speaking to?”

“Thisssss is none of your concern,” hissed the voice again. “You are to hand over any technology we demand. If you comply, no further harm shall be done to your crew or your vessel.”

 

Severin didn’t listen further - he was preoccupied with the viewscreen - if no picture was being transmitted, it should show a view of space, and if it wasn’t working, it should be turned off. There was a difference between ‘showing a black screen’ and ‘not being on’, and this was definitely the former.

He hurried over to the com officer.

“What’s up with the viewscreen?” he whispered.

“I think their video stream isn’t compatible with our displays,” she answered, just as quietly, “but I’ve never had anything like this happen before, so I can’t be sure just yet…”

 

Across the bridge, the Captain was arguing with their attacker.

“Our ship is a hundred years old,” he said, “so even if we would be willing to hand over some tech, we have nothing to offer you. Besides,” he added, almost smugly, “you attacked us near Federation Headquarters, which was a dangerous, dangerous move. Every second you spend here is one second closer to backup arriving, and then you’ll be in big trouble. Are you sure you are willing to take such a risk for whatever measly spare part you might be able to steal from us?”

“You are _bluffing_!” the mystery person snarled, the terrifying background sounds going into overdrive.

 

Severin turned back to the com officer.

“What was the first thing you heard of this transmission?” he asked.

“Uh, interference, I think. Nails on chalkboard, but worse. You can still hear it in the background - might be some incompatible transmission protocol…”

Severin shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Right now, when that… person - when they got angry, your ‘interference’ went _bonkers_. The time the interference lasted - do you think that could have been enough time the for universal translator to compensate for a new language?”

“ _What_?” she asked.

Severin raised an eyebrow and waited.

“I mean - yes, I guess, if it wasn’t too different from languages already in the database, but what… what are you even implying?”

“I think they might have come here from far away - really far away. Probably not voluntarily… Can you scan for subspace anomalies that occurred here in the last few weeks or so?”

“Already at it,” she said. A few second later, she nodded. “Huge wormhole the size of a decently-sized asteroid, about three weeks ago. Can’t believe nobody noticed that…”

“Thanks,” Severin said and briskly walked back over to the captain.

 

“They’re not from here,” he whispered to Captain Hayes, “apparently came here by wormhole a few weeks ago.”

The captain turned around with a tiny gasp, utterly surprised, before knitting his brows, nodding, and turning back to the viewscreen.

 

“You are not from here,” the Captain repeated to the mystery people at the other end of the comm link.

Shocked silence, both on the bridge and on the other ship.

The captain looked over to the comm officer, who nodded.

“Our scans indicate that you arrived here by wormhole,” he continued. “If your vessel was damaged, we might be able to help - we, as in ‘the Federation’, not we in particular. Where did you come from?”

 

More silence. Quiet chattering at the other end of the link.

Then, a confused “uh…”

More hectic chattering.

“I… uh… We’re from almost eighty-thousand light years away,” came the answer, “but we don’t- we aren’t familiar with your spatial terminology or which way you orientate your galactic maps, so we can’t tell you where exactly we’re from. And yes, our vessel is currently only able to move at sub-light speeds and only the most vital systems are online…”

Another short silence.

“But we don’t have anything to pay you with for any repairs you might be able to help us with.”

The captain shrugged, even though he knew nobody on the other ship would be able to see it.

“We, as a society, try to avoid money wherever possible, so that should not be too much of a problem… though if you would be willing to share some non-classified parts of your database for scientific, cultural and diplomatic purposes, the Federation will likely be grateful.”

“Why are you being so helpful?” the alien asked - rightfully so, Severin thought.

“Well, for one my species considers helping those in need very admirable… and also, one of our ships ended up over seventy-thousand light years away from home a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure _they_ would have appreciated a helping hand every now and then. I do hope you haven’t done any serious harm to too many people,” the captain added, “as my superiors would likely not be very happy about that.”

“Not to our knowledge,” the alien said. “We only encountered badly-armed freighters until now, who handed over whatever we demanded with little resistance. Most of it was incompatible with our systems, though.”

The captain hummed.

“I’m sure we can sort that out with enough effort,” he said.

“Captain,” the comm officer interjected, “can I send over an annotated high-resolution galaxy map so the other crew can tell us where they came from?”

“Did you hear that?” the captain asked the alien.

“Yes. We will have to see if we can turn it into a format we can actually display, but it is worth a try.”

 

A few minutes passed after that - they kept the com link open while they worked on converting the map, a quiet backdrop of hissed, squeaky chattering.

Severin relaxed just a little, and looked at the captain, who seemed wholly occupied with his own thoughts - or maybe that injured foot of his, going by how pale he’d gone and how violently he was holding onto the armrests of his chair.

 

Then, after half an eternity, a console gave a chipper ‘ding’, and the comm officer looked up.

“We marked the approximate position of our home star on the map, recompiled the file and sent it back over,” the alien said. “Which was not easy. As it turns out, your visible light spectrum differs slightly from ours. How do you call the part of the spectrum just a tad more energetic than your visible light?”

“Ultraviolet,” the captain answered. “A few species on our home world can see those, too, but usually not _only_ those. That’s pretty fascinating.”

“shall I put the map up on the view screen?” the comm officer interrupted.

“Yes,” the captain said, “please do.”

And suddenly, the screen was filled with a high-resolution map of the galaxy - and in the far side of the gamma quadrant, a small, bright blue circle.

“Oh, you’re in luck,” Captain Hayes grinned.

“How so?”

“Well, around… oh, ten thousand light years away from your home system, there is a stable worm hole, and the other end of that is right here in this quadrant. It’s still not an ideal solution, of course, but it’ll cut down on your travel time quite a bit. How long will those ten thousand light years take you?”

“Five years at most, likely considerably less. Are… are you sure?”

“I lost half my crew defending that damned thing. _Yes_ , I’m sure. That wormhole is exceedingly well-connected and in the process of being well-researched. If we can get your ship fixed up, you can resupply right next to that thing, and then you can get back home in a reasonable amount of time - and without even the tiniest bit of piracy.”

“Yes, well. I’m very sorry for that. Can we put that down to misunderstandings caused by cultural differences, no hard feelings?”

A tired little smile.

“Well, luckily nobody was seriously injured, so I suppose we can.”

“Captain,” the comm officer piped up again, “a Federation starship just dropped out of warp, and is hailing us. One USS Vasa, captained by one… Captain Deveraux?”

“Oh, yes. Answer the hail, put her up on the screen, but keep the comm link to our misplaced friends open - I suppose we better let them listen in.”

“Aye, captain.”

 

A split second later, a serious-looking woman appeared on the screen, almost uncomfortably close up, before she took a nice, big step back and cleared her throat. She was around the captain’s age, with honey-blond, very short hair and the facial expression of one who should not be messed with - that is to say, mildly intimidating.

“Equinox, what’s your status?” she asked without preamble.

“We’re fine, Captain Deveraux,” the captain answered hastily, “there was a minor misunderstanding, which has been resolved. We do still need your help, though…”

He explained the situation in detail, the alien captain occasionally chipping in with a clarification, until she agreed to take them to the nearest Starbase for repairs, and then to DS9 and the wormhole.

 

And then, they were gone.

“We never even got their name,” Lt. Leonhardt said, picking at her bloodstained sleeve.

“Well, given what we’ve heard of their language, I doubt we would have been physically able to pronounce it anyway. Maybe Captain Deveraux will put it on her report…”

He sighed.

“Right, okay, I twisted my ankle a bit during our, uh… unscheduled deceleration, so I’ll go down to sickbay and have the doc take a look at it.”

He looked around the bridge.

“And if somebody can take us off red alert, that would be great.”

He then turned around, looked at Severin, almost sheepishly.

“Could you maybe lend me a hand?” he asked, quietly.

 

Severin glared at him, but complied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love my weird abrupt chapter endings and semi-cliffhangers.  
> Don't worry, next chapter will have some shades of hurt/comfort (uh, mostly hurt?) and fluffy dorky interpersonal shenanigans if the wordcount permits, so that'll be a breeze to write. 
> 
> That said, I wish Scrivener would support exporting or compiling in HTML, because as it is, I always have to go over the text and put all the italics back in, and that's just so unnecessary.
> 
> Also, on the unnecessary easter egg front: Deveraux is another one of my STO toons, and one of her in-game ships is indeed called Vasa. It, in turn, was named after the 17th century warship that capsized and sank on its maiden voyage due to severe design oversights. I'm a huge nerd with a slightly twisted sense of humor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AJKSDHFAWJHE okay  
> I got myself horribly stuck a few times, got distracted by Star Trek Online (if you ever see a Miranda/T6 Reliant-class USS Equinox (NCC-1897) fly about in STO, it me!) and generally did not get things done very well.
> 
> By the end of this I was kind of too done with everything to do much proof-reading, so if anything doesn't make any sense (more so than usual), just... idk, poke me or something and I'll fix it.

They made it to the turbolift, barely. The captain held on to Severin’s arm hard enough to hurt, and Severin had a feeling that it would bruise. It wasn’t very pleasant, especially not paired with that damned pulled muscle, but he’d manage.

The turbolift doors closed, and the captain slumped against Severin with a pained noise, which was quickly stifled. Severin could feel the other man tremble slightly.  
“How are you holding up?” he asked quietly.  
There was a long, long pause.  
“I, ah…” The captain cleared his throat as his voice cracked. “Not… not very well.”  
Severin sighed.  
“I mean, you didn’t exactly have to walk to sickbay,” he said. Paused.  
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”  
“I have no _bloody_ idea!” the Captain groaned.  
“Then let’s call Doc Maur-”  
“ _NO_.”  
Severin didn’t say anything, just pointedly looked at the Captain until he rolled his eyes in annoyance.  
“She’d make a huge fuss, and I am deeply uncomfortable with that.”  
“Ah,” Severin said. He fell silent - arguing probably wouldn’t have gotten him anywhere… though he _did_ wonder what qualified as a ‘huge fuss’ in the Captain’s opinion - Doc Maur didn’t strike him as a person who would make a fuss about pretty much anything.

The turbolift doors opened again, and the captain sighed, stood up a bit straighter, and nodded at Severin. And so, they limped on, towards sickbay.

The captain grew more and more pale the more they walked, and by the time they had reached the sickbay door, Severin was surprised he hadn’t given up on walking there after all - or just outright fainted. The captain slumped a bit more, and Severin had a feeling that he was really looking forward to lying down and probably complaining a lot and generally actually behaving like he was injured… and then they heard laughing and the sound of quite upbeat conversation through the still-closed doors. Right, Severin remembered, there had been some talk about minor injuries across all decks…

The captain made a noise somewhere between a sob and a groan, before he stood up straight, squared his shoulders and forced his features into something more neutral and less obviously in pain.  
“Well,” he said, and _smiled_ , surprisingly convincingly, “let’s do this.”

The doors to sickbay suddenly opened, and Doc Maur stood before them, in all her slightly stressed glory. Behind her, the chattering from about a dozen crew people suddenly stopped dead at the sight of their captain.  
She took one long look at the man, took in the way he didn’t put any weight on his ankle, and his freakishly pale complexion, glared at him, and muttered “I hate you” before dragging him off to the next available biobed.  
“Uh, Doctor Maur?” Severin called after her, “I think I pulled a muscle in my side, can you do anything about that?”  
“No,” she called back, “haven’t run your tests yet, don’t know how I can safely treat you. Do you see now why I was so adamant about that?”  
“Yes, sir,” he replied sarcastically. The crew must be rubbing off on him in their smart-assery, he realized. Great.  
Doc Maur came back over to him.  
“How bad is it?” she asked.  
“Eh, not that bad. Wouldn’t want to put any deliberate strain on it, but otherwise it’s fine.”  
The doc gave him a quick scan with her medical tricorder and nodded.  
“Yeah, that doesn’t look too bad. Go to your cabin, put some ice on the injury and try not to get flung down anymore corridors.”  
“I’ll try. Thanks, doc.”  
She shrugged and shooed him out of the sickbay.

Severin did as he had been told: He went back to his cabin, put something cold on his injury and then grabbed a datapad and spent the next several hours reading, until he got bored. The ship was still not moving for some reason, and his cabin was quiet and lonely and incredibly dull. He put aside his datapad and got up.

“Computer,” he said, “locate Captain Hayes.”  
“Captain Hayes is in his quarters,” the computer replied.  
‘Dangit,’ Severin thought. Had the captain been in his ready room or on the bridge, he’d have come by and asked how the man was feeling and why they weren’t moving yet, but he could hardly disturb the captain in his quarters…  
Somebody hailed him.  
“Hayes to Mr. Lapointe,” he heard.  
“Lapointe here.”  
“You asked for my location - is there a problem?”  
“Whu- what?”  
There was a short, awkward pause. Then the captain chuckled.  
“Oh, yes, due to some past events, the computer notifies the subject of every location request. I didn’t quite realize that nobody had told you yet. Sorry if I startled you, that was not my intention.”  
“Oh. Uh…” Severin cleared his throat. “Had you been on the bridge or in your ready room, I would have swung by and asked how you’re doing, but I didn’t want to disturb you. Which… well, obviously didn’t quite work out.”  
“Any deeper reason behind that, or were you really just that worried about me?”  
“Bit of both, Captain - of course I’m worried, but I’m also bored but not really in the mood for more reading. And I’m a tad confused because we’re still not moving and wanted to ask someone what’s up with that. Going up to the bridge would have potentially helped with all of that, but I wouldn’t really feel comfortable up there right now, because I haven’t been properly introduced to anyone from the beta shift and just… you know, turning up on the bridge all on my own would feel weird and potentially alienate your crew.”  
“Well, fair enough,” the Captain said and paused for a few seconds, before continuing: “I’m not really doing anything at the moment; if you want, you can come over to my quarters and we can talk for a bit.”  
“Are you sure I won’t annoy you?”  
“I usually avoid talking to people who annoy me, not actively seek them out.”  
“Well, all right then. I’m on my way.”

  
Halfway to the captain’s quarters, he ran into Sissy Leonhardt - almost literally.  
She took a step back, and scrutinized him with furrowed brows and a dangerously glum expression.  
“What are you doing?” she asked.  
“I’m going to see the captain.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I’m lonely and bored.”  
After another long, searching look at him, she nodded.  
“That’s fine, then,” she said.  
Now it was Severin’s turn to furrow his brows, fairly confused.  
“What is this all about?” he asked.  
Sissy sighed, but staid silent. Then, she shrugged.  
“Well, most diplomats I know are complete and utter assholes who would probably have the audacity to complain about today’s little… unscheduled first contact. I’m fairly sure the captain was injured far more badly than he let on, and while I am not too worried about him, thanks to our highly competent chief medical officer, I wouldn’t let anyone be an ass to him after all of this either - he’s had a very long week. Besides, I actually like you, and I would have been sorely disappointed.”  
“I see,” he said. And then: “You’re very protective of your captain.”  
She gave a short laugh.  
“Well, somebody has to be, because he… well, he has a terrible habit of putting himself in harm’s way. ‘Harm’ being anything from marauding Klingons to really big assholes from Starfleet Command. And that’s why we usually try to keep the biggest bullshit away from him. I’m very glad that doesn’t include you.”  
“So am I.”  
“Hm. Well, good talk, and now get your butt over to the captain before he sends a search party to look for you.”  
She winked at him, and before he could say anything else, she vanished down the corridor, humming to herself.

About a minute later, he arrived at the captain’s quarters and, after ringing, entered.

The captain was lounging on his couch on the other side of the cabin like a Roman emperor - obviously because it allowed him to put his foot up and rest it on a couch pillow, but it looked absurdly graceful anyway.

“Hello, Mr. Lapointe,” the captain said, “please do come in - I hope you don’t mind me not getting up to greet you, because that probably wouldn’t go too well right now.”  
Severin stepped into the room, and the door closed.

“… I thought Doc Maur patched you up again?” he asked, and vaguely gestured at the captain and his foot.  
“Oh, everything is _technically_ fine - all the broken bits are back together as they should be… it’s going to be a bit tender for a few days, though. Not a big deal, really.”  
Severin nodded and sat down in an armchair opposite the captain, before stopping short.  
“Wait, ‘all the broken bits’?” he asked.  
A short, awkward silence stretched between the two men, while the captain very visibly regretted his choice of words.  
“Yes,” he then said blankly. “And you’ve still got some nasty scrapes on your face, so I guess Doc Maur didn’t finish her tests and didn’t want to risk treating you without knowing what she was doing?” he added.  
Severin winced - he’d completely forgotten about the carpet burns on his face and hands and didn’t appreciate remembering them again.  
“Pretty much, yes,” he said, “but it’s fine. Now,” he added, not quite willing to let the captain off so easily, “when you say ‘broken bits’, did you mean that literally? Did you really walk all across the ship with a broken ankle?”  
“I did,” the captain said, “and it’s honestly not a big deal. I’m fine- well, going to be fine,” he amended, “and besides, I’ve had worse. Maybe not on the first day after leaving Earth, but apparently, there’s a first for everything. I’m very sorry, by the way, for this entirely too eventful start to your mission-”  
“-no, it’s alright, really-”  
“-and I also wanted to thank you.”  
Severin tilted his head.  
“For what?”  
“For keeping your calm and figuring out that the aliens were merely in distress, not malicious. If you hadn’t realized, who knows what would have happened. I also wanted to thank you for helping me get to the bridge and to sickbay without the crew catching on too much.”  
“Yes, about that…” Severin said. “Why were you so adamant about that? That’s… way beyond just keeping your decorum as a captain.”  
The captain let his head loll back for a second and took a deep breath.  
Then he looked back at Severin, smiled a tight little smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and tilted his head a bit, as if he was trying to figure out how to answer.  
Finally, he said: “A long time ago, certain circumstances made it vital for me not to show any discomfort, no matter what. It’s a long story, but believe me when I say that the lives of most of the crew depended on it. I managed, we came out of that alive, but I’m afraid the lesson stuck a little too well, and now the thought of the crew noticing that anything is amiss terrifies me.” He shrugged. “It was a small price to pay.”  
“Ah,” was all Severin said - he was far too busy trying to figure out what kind of ‘circumstance’ could have led to such a situation.  
The captain quickly caught on, of course, and smiled - sincerely, this time.  
“I might tell you the whole story eventually,” he said, “if it ever comes up again… But not now. It’s not a fun story, and I’ve had a pretty difficult week.”  
“How so?” Severin asked, “any trouble getting the ship ready?”  
The captain nodded.  
“Plenty. It’s a fight every time, and I also feel like it gets worse every time. Or maybe my patience is just wearing thin. Did you notice how damn cold it is in here?”  
Severin nodded - ‘damn cold’ was a bit of a hyperbole, in his opinion, but it was definitely a tad more chilly than he would have expected.  
“Some particularly bright engineer from Earth Spacedock decided to disregard my friendly advice about how to wire up the heating and - guess what - it’s overloading and burning through fuses left and right. Again. Just like the last three times. My engineers are occupied with more pressing issues - like a completely destroyed console down in main engineering - and while I would love to go and fix it myself, I can’t. Not like this.”  
“But you’d be able to?” Severin asked, surprised. In his rather extensive experience, captains usually didn’t run around fixing their own ships.  
“Sure,” the captain replied with a shrug, “most of us know how to fix little things like that - blown fuses, burnt-out lights, all those tiny annoyances. Otherwise we’d never get anything done. Thing is, the heating needs some wiring fixed, otherwise it’ll just keep breaking, and I can’t think of anyone except for me and the engineers who’d know how to do that - doesn’t break often enough to be common knowledge yet.”  
“Aha,” Severin said and nodded, only marginally less surprised after that explanation.  
“Isn’t heating linked to life support, though?” he then asked, a bit worried.  
“No, life support keeps the temperature at a steady 12° Celsius to ensure that we don’t get cooked inside our ship - heating everything back up again is a separate system, which is why our current issues aren’t exactly high priority - it’s not dangerous, it’s just going to be very uncomfortable when the heating finally fails completely.”  
“Oh, okay…” Severin said, and wanted to add something, when the ship suddenly jerked forward, sending a few datapads flying off the captains desk.  
The captain rolled his eyes.  
“And the engine’s back online,” he said. “Obviously.”  
He looked at the data pads and sighed.  
“Let me just get those…”

And before Severin could say anything, the captain had gotten up, howled in pain as his ankle gave out underneath him, and crumpled to the floor, flailing.  
What followed was the wildest accumulation of curses Severin had ever heard - the universal translator gave up halfway through, and Severin could make out at least four different Earth languages, two of them dead, as well as some Klingon and a number of things he couldn’t even begin to identify. After a solid minute, the curses petered out into badly concealed dry sobs, which was when Severin finally walked over to the captain and knelt down next to him.  
“Are you okay?” he asked.  
“Yes,” the captain answered, barely audible and totally exhausted, “I just forgot…”  
He sighed.  
“Oh well, doesn’t matter.”  
“May I help you up?”  
“I’d appreciate it.”

With a lot of effort, Severin managed to get the captain back onto his couch - he was pale and shivering, his hands icy cold, and he suddenly looked absolutely dead-tired.  
“You’re freezing,” Severin noted.  
“Heatings down, remember?” The captain mumbled and let his head dangle over the armrest.  
“Yes, but why didn’t you grab a blanket or something?”  
“’S hardly proper for a captain in polite company. Not that it matters at this point, I suppose…” Captain Hayes sighed. “Today did not quite go as I expected. Sorry for that.”  
“Stop apologizing, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I’ll fetch you a blanket if you tell me where to look.”  
The captain wordlessly pointed at the door to the adjacent room, and Severin equally wordlessly set to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. One more chapter of this, I think, or maybe more, and then it'll get a bit more time-skippy. I've got some 17k words of stuff written for this story, I just have to get to that part first.


End file.
